Blind viewers once missed the action. Now a voice fills the gaps
Audio description slips short spoken notes on the action into pauses in the dialogue, some as short as a second. A spare audio channel carries it to sets.
The collection
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The complete edition. Fresh thinking from across our world.
Geneticists extract ancient DNA from a single tooth
Teeth outlast bone, and DNA survives in them long after death. Geneticists read it in sealed, filtered rooms, and Neanderthal plaque even shows past meals.
In the UK, a dangerous building waits for a council's notice
Under the Building Act 1984, a council must serve notice before it makes a dangerous building safe. In Boston, a fire-hit wall stood unsupported meanwhile.
Britain sells its airwaves to the highest bidder, round by round
The UK sells mobile frequencies by auction. The 3G sale in 2000 ran 150 rounds and raised £22.5 billion. The 5G sale in 2018 raised £1.4 billion.
The UK is cutting aid to its lowest share of income since 1999
Britain's aid spending is set to fall to 0.3% of national income by 2027 to pay for defence. Aid to Africa falls by more than half, and polio funding ends.
Two astronomers spent seven years measuring out the metre
In 1792 two French astronomers set out to measure the meridian to fix the metre. It came out 0.2mm short, and Méchain hid readings that did not agree.
The UK's Climate Change Act binds ministers to net zero by 2050
The 2008 Act made net zero by 2050 a legal duty for UK ministers, with five-year carbon budgets. The UK met the first three but is off track for the next two.
Denmark gave the world co-housing in the 1970s
Co-housing began in Denmark in the mid-1970s. At Lilac Grove in Leeds, 20 private homes share a garden and a common house where residents eat twice a week.
Clay and sandy soil fail a garden in opposite ways
Clay holds water but packs hard, and sand drains fast but feeds little. Sarah Raven suggests persicaria for clay, and nepeta and thyme for sand.
Chile's building code: crack, tilt, but never fall
Chile's code lets a building crack or tilt in a magnitude 9.0 quake, but never collapse. That and regular drills kept an 8.3 quake's toll low in 2015.
Your PlayStation pad's circle means yes. Teiyu Goto chose it
Teiyu Goto gave the 1994 PlayStation pad grips and four symbols. The triangle meant viewpoint, the square a menu, and the circle and X yes and no.
America's first space station began as a spare rocket stage
NASA built Skylab from a leftover Saturn upper stage for three crews. About 63 seconds into launch, its shield tore away and took a solar array with it.
Delisted: why licensed games vanish from digital stores
When a car, music or brand licence runs out, the publisher loses the right to sell the game. Forza Horizon 4 owners could still play and download theirs.
The account a UK customer described, against the one they ran
UK banks must check transactions against what they know of a customer. Santander flagged a mismatch in 2014, acted in 2015, and was fined £107.7m.
Wales's first Unesco City of Literature is not a city
Aberystwyth won the title for its literary scene and bilingual culture. Unesco judges a City of Literature on publishing, festivals, libraries and bookshops.
Wax against dye: how batik keeps colour off the cloth
In batik, hot wax blocks the dye from the cloth, and wax that is not hot enough lets dye bleed under it. Each new layer of wax guards the colours below.
Selling a share you don't own starts with borrowing it
A short seller borrows a share, sells it, and hopes to buy it back cheaper. The lender earns interest on the cash and can recall the share at any time.
Antarctic bases lean on diesel when the polar sun goes
Antarctic bases fall back on diesel in winter. Belgium's small Princess Elisabeth station runs on wind and sun, and a 9-kilowatt turbine ran Halley unstaffed.
How Russia's shadow fleet slips past Western oil sanctions
Russia's shadow fleet changes names and flags, and coastal states can do little beyond 12 miles out. Sweden can only radio tankers. Britain has boarded one.
De Gaulle was the hard-liners' hope. He let Algeria go
France called Algeria an integral part of the nation and fought from 1954 to keep it. The FLN won in 1962 by diplomacy, once de Gaulle negotiated peace.
The trouble with ice on a wing
Even thin frost on a wing cuts lift and adds weight. Crews melt it with heated orange glycol, then add a thicker green fluid to stop new ice forming.
Advaita Vedanta holds that your self and reality are one
The Indian school holds that the self, atman, is brahman. Maya makes the one reality look like many, and grasping this ends the cycle of rebirth.
Flock cameras in the US: what they record and who can search
Flock plate cameras feed a shared police network. A Kentucky officer used it to track his ex-girlfriend, and a Texas detective to hunt a woman over abortion.
Beijing promised Hong Kong 50 years of its own way of life
Britain says China seriously breached the 1984 treaty by removing bookseller Lee Po in 2015. Beijing says one country, two systems could outlast 2047.